On “Tinseltown:” A Book Review

This year’s book reviews are going to be primarily focused on Hollywood, whether it be the location itself, its stars, or the books that some of those classic movie favorites are based off of. To start it off, I present to you a book about Hollywood in the 1920’s.

Title: Tinseltown

Author: William J. Mann

Genre: Non-Fiction

About the book…

The early days of Hollywood were filled with intrigue and scandal, among which is included the unsolved case of the Motion Picture Directors Association’s president, William Desmond Taylor’s, death. William J. Mann explores the suspects of the time, with a focus on Taylor’s connections to Mary Miles Minter, Mabel Normand, and Margaret Gibson, and their possible motives, presenting his ideas on just what happened the night Taylor was killed, as well as diving into the challenges faced in this fascinating time in Hollywood history.

What I think…

While the history of Hollywood has always been of interest to me, I realized when I picked up this book that I really only knew the basics when it came to the early years of movie making and those were involved. 

To begin with, this was written more in the style of a novel, which made it fast paced to read even at almost 500 pages. It was also broken up in such a way that allowed for a certain amount of suspense to build around the case and all its details. 

I knew very little about the death of Taylor when I started reading, but became more and more fascinated by the details as Mann unraveled them and presented the case. That this case has gone unsolved and still remains unsolved is interesting in itself and by the end of the book I found it interesting to compare the various ideas that have circulated over time as to who did it.

I liked how Mann integrated other issues of the time into the book as well. He addressed how the studio heads, especially Adolph Zukor, handled the increasing scandal of their stars and in general their ideas of how the industry should be shaped. One aspect of this that I really enjoyed reading about was the constant struggle with the rising demands of the public to clean up both their movies and Hollywood, which ultimately led to the Hays Code.

To sum it all up…

An interesting account of Hollywood in the 1920’s, the unsolved death of William Desmond Taylor, and how the studio heads handled the scandals of the time in relation to the demands of the public. This is a book that is great for anyone with an interest in the early history of Hollywood. ♥

On My 1950's Circle Skirt with Matching Jacket

Last November I sewed my first jacket, and a matching one at that! Originally, I was just planning on making a circle skirt with this gorgeous Robert Kaufman fabric, but after getting it cut out, I decided I had so much extra fabric that I had to make a matching jacket. For this I picked a simple McCall Pattern I've had for awhile (see below) because I had a short amount of time before I was planning to wear it and didn't want to deal with button holes or any other sort of fastenings. Having never made anything with long sleeves before and feeling somewhat nervous about the discovery that it had elbow darts (I had no idea how to tell exactly where they were supposed to fall on the sleeve), I was extremely pleased with how it fit, how quickly it came together, and, overall, that it ended up being absolutely perfect for the skirt!    

Now for some details for those interested...

The jacket pattern called for it to go unlined, but since I used a quilting cotton I decided to underline/interline it both for warmth and to add to the structure. This worked really well for when I stitched the facing to the inside, as well, since I didn't have to be as careful about the stitches showing on the outside. 

Bottom inside of the jacket.

The skirt...oh, my goodness!...for such a simple circle skirt I had quite a few "oops!" moments. My first mistake was forgetting to put the interfacing in the waistband, which I didn't realize until I had stitched the first side to the skirt, had graded the seams, and was ready to fold it over and stitch it to the front. Now, the pattern doesn't call for interfacing, but I like having it there that way the waistband has a little more support to it, so I decided to attempt to sew it in (last time I used iron in interfacing on a waistband it went badly) without detaching the waistband and after a slight struggle to make sure I wasn't sewing through too many layers, in it went.

After having gone through all that work on the waistband, I went to check the fit and found that the skirt was a half an inch too small to be comfortable. I had made the Simplicity circle skirt pattern before, but the fabric I had used previously had some stretch to it that this was lacking. Fortunately, though, I had cut my pieces along the selvage and hadn't graded down either seam, which left me two options: 1. Unpick my lapped zipper or 2. Unpick the entire waistband.

I chose the later and spent a very irritable two hours unpicking the waistband (which had been fully attached and had a total of three seams at this point, including the basting on the interfacing) and then the side of my skirt. Despite about halfway through feeling that perhaps it would have been wiser to have just have ripped out the zipper and worked with that seam, it turned out when I made the adjustment that the overlap on the waistband was just long enough to still fit on the skirt without me having to cut a new one and deal with matching it up in the right spot on the already graded seam. *Phew* The whole ordeal was an absolute pain and one that I will be making sure to avoid next time I use this pattern.

Finally, while I had been intending to go with lace for the trim, nothing I found was the right width or what I was looking for. However, I ended up stopping by Joann Fabrics and found the most perfect punched suede trim that happened to be on sale and onto the skirt it went after lots and lots and lots of pinning to make sure it'd stay in the right place.    

This trim is not photograph friendly, so you'll have to bear with this.

And as a result of all this work, despite the frustration, I ended up with what is probably now one of my favorite outfits. 

Photos taken by my co-worker (first one), me (details), and my mother (last one).

♥♥♥